John Poole Sandlands (1838 – 30 January 1915) was an English clergyman,
naturopath
Naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is a form of alternative medicine. A wide array of practices branded as "natural", "non-invasive", or promoting "self-healing" are employed by its practitioners, who are known as naturopaths. Difficult ...
and
vegetarianism
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...
activist.
Biography
Sandlands was born in
Dawley
Dawley ( ) is a former mining town and civil parish in the borough of Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire, England. It was originally proposed be the main centre of the 'Dawley New Town' plan in 1963, however it was decided in 1968 to name the new ...
, Shropshire, one of the nine children of John Sandlands, a saddler, and Mary Ann his wife.
After initially working as a school master (recorded in the 1861 census),
he was further educated at Lichfield College and
Trinity College Dublin
Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...
where he obtained his B.A. (1860) and M.A. (1863).
[Tyson, Brian. (1991). ''Bernard Shaw's Book Reviews''. Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. 210-211. ] He was the curate of St. Luke's, Hanley (1866–1869) and vicar of
Brigstock
Brigstock is a village and civil parish in the English county of Northamptonshire. Administratively it is part of North Northamptonshire. From 2001 to 2011, the parish population increased from 1,329 to 1,357.
Toponymy
The village's name orig ...
, Northamptonshire (1869–1873).
He resided in the vicarage at St. Andrew's Church.
He was considered an authority on public speaking and voice production.
He married Janet Pitcairn Simpson in 1869 and they had two children; their second child was
Paul Sandlands.
Sandlands died when he fell down the stairs at his vicarage in 1915.
In Brigstock, two roads are named after Sandlands: Sandlands Avenue and Sandlands Close.
Naturopathy
At his vicarage, Sandlands developed a naturopathic sanatorium to which patients came from all over the world.
Sandlands denied the existence of germs and believed that disease was caused by "unwholesome food". He advised his patients to never take medicine and held the view that
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...
could be cured by eating natural foods such as fruit and nuts.
His claims about curing cancer were criticized in ''
The Lancet
''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal, founded in England in 1823. It is one of the world's highest-impact academic journals and also one of the oldest medical journals still in publication.
The journal publishes ...
'' journal. Sandlands was a non-smoker, teetotaller and vegetarian who opposed the consumption of white bread.
In 1903, Sandlands wrote a rebuttal to
Albert Broadbent's diet that recommended
plasmon
In physics, a plasmon is a quantum of plasma oscillation. Just as light (an optical oscillation) consists of photons, the plasma oscillation consists of plasmons. The plasmon can be considered as a quasiparticle since it arises from the quant ...
, entitled ''Science in the Daily Meal Criticised: Or Plasmon Confounded''.
[Addyman, Mary; Wood, Laura; Yiannitsaros, Christopher. (2017). ''Food, Drink, and the Written Word in Britain, 1820–1945''. Routledge. p. 157. ]
Selected publications
''The Voice of Public Speaking''(1879)
*''How to Develop General Vocal Power'' (1886)
*''How to Be Well: Or the Principles of Health'' (1896)
''Fallacies in Present-Day Thought''(1902)
*''Natural Food'' (1902)
''Sanitation Personal and Public''(1902)
*''"Science in the Daily Meal" Criticised, Or Plasmon Confounded'' (1903)
*''Corpulence, A Case and Cure: Or Why Grow Fat?'' (1903)
*''Health: A Royal Road to It'' (1909)
References
Further reading
*Egan, Gill. (2010)
''The Rev John Poole Sandlands BA, MA: Vicar of Brigstock and Prolific Author'' Giants of Dawley. pp. 32–33
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sandlands, J. P.
1838 births
1915 deaths
19th-century English clergy
19th-century English male writers
20th-century English clergy
20th-century English male writers
Accidental deaths from falls
Alternative cancer treatment advocates
Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
English vegetarianism activists
English health and wellness writers
Germ theory denialists
Naturopaths
People from Dawley
Pseudoscientific diet advocates